The Adventurers of Yar'rag Setab: The Etherwhale

The Adventures of Yar'rag Setab 1986 (686IC)

I came across this picture today ( https://hjalmarwahlin.deviantart.com/ ) and it reminded me of an adventure I had when I was younger. I was about 12 years old (I turned thirteen that October) and I had been studying at the arts of magic but a few years. Spending part of my time here in the real world and some of it n the Isles of Magic. However It was the school holidays in both realms and my grandfather thought it would be good if we took a break from my studies. We went out onto the Great Gray Marshes in our world known as the East Tilbury Marshes and we began to explore.

We started off by Oldhouse Fort then ventured down to the river Thane from there we made our way along the shore past the ancient Elven tower of Riverguard and then on to the Troll Mausoleum.

The sun was hitting the water at the right angle and the breeze took the edge of off the summer sun. The sky was mostly blue with islands of big bulbous clouds here and there like a floating archipelago.

My grandfather and I rested at the old stone table once said to be a meeting place of Trolls, then druids and now rarely visited at all except by the odd Arcaneologist or Ranger.

Together we stopped here for an hour before turning in land. The ground was damp but firm. Rocks covered in lichens, hardy shrubs, thistles, dock leaves and all manner of grasses dotted the landscape here and there a barrow or fairy hill. Water ways cut through the landscape and everywhere dragonflies, bumble bees and butterflies took to the wing.

As was normal for us when we went exploring we each carried with us a canvas pack, a hip flask, a pen knife, compass and a spy glass. No mobile phones, they had not been invented yet, well not ones normal* people could afford.

In my pack I also had one of my notes books bought from paper capper in Tilbury, a pencil case fully equipped, a policeman's whistle and a ball of string. Oh and my pack lunch. In my hand I had a walking stick fashioned for me by my grandfather. He was a true warrior of the light, a man of wood and a story teller without compare.

He too had a staff, seemingly plain until you got up close, that's when you noticed the minute runes in gold, silver, bronze, brass and copper.

The two of us walked for several hours talking about nature and the supernatural, about trolls and elves and of course about magic.

It was then we came to the great tor of Froth Jeff and we made the sign of the warriors of light and we praised the Silver Lady and the Golden Lord and we began to walk up the hill to its top passing first Firblog, then Neolithic, then Pictish, then Celtic, then Roman, the Saxon and finally Viking markers, between them stood goblin, gnome and elf signs. This Tor my grandfather assured me was special and sure enough on this day I was to discover it was for sure.

As we got to the top of the hill we ate and drank and swapped stories. Then my grandfather held up his hand and said very quietly that I should take out my spy glass and look to the north as a great cloud bank which was coming my way.

 I looked but could not see anything other than gulls and fluffy clouds. Then he put his boney hand upon my shoulder and gently squeezed. He put his mouth next to my ear and whispered look not just with your eyes but also with your mind.

Then I saw it and I almost fell backwards with suprise. There in the clouds bursting forth was a giant whale. It looked silver tinted and its side fins where much larger than the whales of the sea.

It was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen.

“What is it” I said?

“An Etherwhale” he explained and I was in awe. We spent the next two hours watching until it had passed.

That day I learned a great deal about majesty and beauty and about the world that exists just beyond our reality. We walked back across the Moors with a spring in my step and a thousand things whirling in my mind.

It's funny because I often think back to that day, I have seen flying whales in comic books, in cartoons and films but that was the only time I have seen them for real.